The Palace of Darkened Windows eBook

From habit his steps took him to the bazaars.
But the zest of that bright pageant was dulled for
him. The color was gone even from the red canopies,
and the excitement had vanished from the din of noises,
the interest fled from the grave figures squatting
in their cubby holes of shops draped with silky rags
or sewing upon scarlet slippers. He listened
apathetically to the warring shouts of the donkey
boys and the anathemas of a jostled water carrier stooping
under his distended goatskin, then dodged out of the
way of a goaded donkey and turned into one of the
passages where the four-footed could not penetrate.

For a few moments the bargaining over a silver bracelet
between two beturbaned and berobed Arabs caught the
surface of his attention, and as the wrangling became
a bedlam of imprecations, and the explosive gestures
made physical violence a development apparently of
mere seconds, Billy’s eyes brightened and he
estimated chances. But as he picked his favorite
there was one final frenzy of fury, and then—­peace
and joy, utter calm on the wild waters! One Arab
counted out the coins from a little leather bag about
his neck and the other passed over the bracelet, and
with mutual salaams and smiling speeches, behold!
the affair was accomplished.

Disgustedly Billy turned away. Then on the other
side of him he heard a voice, a sweet and rather high
voice, with a musical intensity of inflection that
was as English as the Union Jack.

“Yes, it’s sweetly pretty,”
the voice was saying irresolutely, “but I don’t
think I quite care to—­not at that
price.”

“I—­I will buy it for you—­yes?”
said another voice. “It is made for you—­so
‘sweetly pretty’ as you say.”

Billy turned. A slim, tall girl in a dark blue
frock was standing before a counter of Oriental jewelry,
her head turned, with an air of startled surprise,
to the man on the other side of her who had just spoken.
He was a short, stout, blond man, heavily flushed,
showily dressed, with a fulsome beam in his light-blue
eyes and an ingratiating grin beneath his upturned
straw-colored mustaches.

The girl turned her head away toward the shop-keeper
and put back the turquoise-studded buckle she held
in her hand. “No, I do not care for it,”
she said in a steady voice whose coldness was for the
intruder and turned away.

Billy had a glimpse of scarlet cheeks and dark lashed
eyes before the blond young man again took his attention.

“You do not like it—­no?” he
said, blocking her path, his face thrust out to smile
into hers. “But I buy you anything you wish—­I
make you one present——­”

The girl gave a quick look about. But she was
in a pocket; for there was no other exit to that line
of shops but the path he was blocking. All about
her the dark-skinned venders and shoppers, the bearded
men, the veiled women, the impish urchins, were watching
the encounter with beady eyes of malicious interest.